Teary Double Feature
by Mad Server
Summary: Dean has two breakdowns.  The first is gen and post-7.10, and there's a ghost some woods and I won't elaborate further for fear of spoiling people.  The second is slash and s4 and involves a snowstorm, a fever, a broken-down car and some awesome Sam.


TITLE: Come Away  
>AUTHOR: mad_server<br>CHARACTERS: Sam, Dean  
>PAIRING: None<br>RATING: PG13  
>SPOILERS: 7.10<br>WORDS: 500  
>AN: For the beautiful wonderful Hoodie Time holiday meme.  
>SUMMARY: Bobby's not dead. He's here, and he wants Dean to go into the woods with him.<p>

:::

Bobby's palm is warm on Dean's cheek. His eyes are clear under the shadow of his cap.

Dean's heart is pounding. He can't hear a thing.

Bobby screws the top off his flask, hands it to Dean. His lips are moving. Dean breathes in and out.

It's like no whisky Dean's ever tasted.

:::

Sam's frowny, like a big frowny muppet.

"I swear to God."

"Bobby? That can't be good. Can that be good?"

"It's good." Dean puffs out his chest for emphasis, takes a pull off his mickey.

"What did he do?"

Dean's face feels so hot.

Sam's hands are all around him, his voice warm like dogs. "Whoa, whoa."

:::

"How you feeling?"

"Christmas tree."

Sam presses cool wetness to the back of his neck. "Okay. Random."

"Bobby's in the woods." Dean sees the snowy ground, the prickly green saplings. His tongue feels too big.

Sam smoothes hair off his face. "What? How do you know?"

Dean shivers, pushes away the covers. "He's got an ax."

:::

Sam shuts the trunk of the car and holds up the baggie of dried sage leaves. "Okay." He puts a few in each of Dean's coat pockets, stuffs what's left in his own. "It's not Bobby. It's a revenant."

"You keep saying that."

"I don't hear you saying it back."

Dean watches Sam's breath billow out white and disappear.

"If you can't do this, man, we can find another way."

"No." Moonlight bounces off Bobby's white hat in the forest. The snaps on his jacket gleam. Dean's boots want to be beside his. "Let's go."

:::

"Go away," Sam commands.

Dean opens his mouth, closes it. Bobby looks so big against the saplings.

"What's the matter, Sam?" Bobby's voice resonates like a cello. "Don't you want a Christmas tree?"

Sam crushes a sage leaf right under Dean's nose. Dean breathes in the piercing scent. "Go away," Dean repeats.

"You're not wanted here."

Dean looks at Bobby's bristly beard. He takes a step toward him.

"Hey," Sam huffs. His fingers are tight around Dean's wrist. "Listen to me. You have to do this, okay? You don't do this and you die. We both die."

Dean pulls all the sage from his pockets, pushes it to his own face. His eyes are blind with tears.

:::

"You're hardcore." Sam's giant arm is down his back and it's too warm in this room, the air is stale. "You could so take Chuck Norris."

Dean's drenched with snot and salt water. He sits down miserably at the table.

Sam runs the tap into the plug-in kettle. "God, Dean. I don't know if I could've done it. Drugged like that?"

Dean rests his forehead on his folded arms.

Sam's voice is softer. "It looked just like him, huh?" His palm finds the base of Dean's skull and stays there as grief puddles on the formica tabletop. "You're okay." The kettle rumbles to a boil and clicks itself off.

:::

Prompt: _It's Christmas. Bobby's dead. Except maybe not, because he's right here talking to Dean. They're going to have a proper holiday with their makeshift family. Bobby's got a flask of something amazing, like no whisky Dean's ever tasted. Sam said it wasn't Bobby, that Dean shouldn't listen, shouldn't follow, that Sam's going to figure it out and Dean should stay right there, but Sam's got it wrong. Bobby's back, and Dean's going off into the snowy woods with him to cut a Christmas tree._

* * *

><p>TITLE: That Other Home<br>AUTHOR: mad_server  
>CHARACTERS: Sam, Dean<br>PAIRING: Sam/Dean  
>RATING: PG13<br>SPOILERS: S4  
>WORDS: 700<br>A/N: For the beautiful wonderful Hoodie Time holiday meme.  
>SUMMARY: The car breaks down in a snowstorm. Dean follows suit.<p>

:::

"You don't look so good," Sam observes as Dean tapes the reflective construction vest across the Impala's rear window. Dean's hair is polka-dotted with fat flakes of snow, his nose bright red in the fading light.

Dean rubs at a fluffy white cluster that's caught in his lashes. "I'm fine." He scowls up and down the deserted stretch of road, pulls out his phone.

Sam tugs the grey wool blanket out of the trunk and pushes the lid shut, gently, the way Dean likes.

Dean stuffs his cell back in his pocket and spits out a startled sneeze.

Sam lifts the blanket and raises his eyebrows.

"I'm fine. Shut up."

:::

"All of those?"

"All of those."

"You think they're all going to fit on me at the same time?"

"Dude, hypothermia's a real concern, never mind this bug you're coming down with."

Dean paws through the clothing in his lap, about half the contents of Sam's duffel. He holds up Sam's dog T-shirt. "This is gonna look hotter on me. Don't feel bad."

Sam rolls his eyes. He leans down into the footwell. "Bet I can get on more socks than you."

"Oh, you just try."

:::

Dean's coughing hot air onto Sam's thigh and Sam's playing with the little blond hairs on the shell of his ear.

"How do you feel," Sam murmurs.

Dean nuzzles sleepily into his belly. Sam rubs his side through the blanket.

"Sprung a fever, Dean."

Dean gasps and relaxes, gasps and flinches with a sneeze that hurts Sam's ears.

:::

"I never thought this."

Dean's perched in the driver's seat, knees drawn up tight in front of him. His feet are thick with socks.

Sam straightens the blanket around his shoulders. He notes the purple-brown sag under his eyes, like thumbprints in dough. "Never thought what, man?"

"In... when I was... you know." He shakes with a startling cough, wipes his nose on his hand. "Downstairs." He turns bright eyes to Sam. "It is _hot_ down there. The ads don't lie." He sniffles and pinches his nose and Sam scans the floor for the least-used napkin, scoops it up and passes it to him.

Dean looks at it without recognition, turns it over in his hands. "I was always sweatin'. I'm not talkin' about a polite little sheen here. I mean drenched. Me and all the ones who didn't belong." His fingers are jittery on the thin white paper. "Woulda killed for a shower, let me tell you. And... Alastair..." Dean gazes out at the falling snowflakes, the cold night sky. "He was cool as a cucumber. The demons, know what I mean? It was their natural habitat."

Dean snuffles and drags the napkin under his reddened nose. His eyes fill up and Sam's hands go to his elbow, his knee.

"You made it out," Sam tells him softly. "You did good, man. You're safe now, right? You're free."

Dean gulps as tears spill down his face. He blows his nose messily.

"Hey." Sam smoothes the hair off his burning forehead, squeezes the back of his neck. "You're okay."

"Never thought I'd be cold again." Dean loosens in Sam's hands like putty. "Not until the end."

"Yeah?" Sam brushes at Dean's wet face.

"One day I woke up, an' I wasn't sweatin'." His nose is running but he doesn't seem to notice. "I wasn't hot anymore. I was used to it." Sam uses his own sleeve to dab at Dean's lip. "That's when I knew."

Sam rakes his fingers over Dean's feverish scalp, cradles his skull. "No no no. You're home."

:::

The blue light from the snowplow flashes through the windows. Sam rubs his sleeping brother's chest and wriggles out from under him to flag it down.

:::

"My mouth tastes like I was licking pants all night. Did I lick pants all night?"

"No." Sam watches Dean cough into a padded arm, turns his gaze back to the incandescent highway. He turns up the heat. "You about ready to shed, Michelin Man?"

The clothes pool around Dean's feet, spread across the seat in careless layers. He takes a deep breath and stretches warm, sleepy limbs, then droops into the familiar leather, slender in his own clothes.

"You warm and cozy?"

Dean yawns. "I would describe myself as warm and cozy."

Sam reaches over and pats his chest.

:::

Prompt: _Dean and Sam. Stranded in the car, on the side of the road in a snowstorm. Is there cuddling for warmth in the backseat with Dean breaking down in Sam's arms and/or reacting badly to touch because it's the first time anyone's held him/been so close to him since hell? Or something more light-hearted where Dean is getting sick and Sam covers him in the blanket from the trunk and feels his forehead a lot and generally schmoops him up? Both of those things at the same time, maaaybe? I'm just throwing ideas out there; I like ALL THE THINGS._


End file.
